Your New Process (Some Assembly Required)
Filed Under Software Process
Software teams are continually looking to adopt and mutate their processes to help counteract their immediate needs and weaknesses. And I think we can all agree that different software processes have their strengths and weaknesses.
Therefore, it is only logical to say that the this equation holds true:
Process Strengths + Current Team Weaknesses = Process Adoption and Success
Wrong.
The #1 failure of newly adopted software processes is effort.
I have watched numerous teams time and time again throw away software processes (that could have solved all of their problems) because they never gave any effort to truly adopting them.
You see your egg and expect it to crow – Chuang Tzu
Just because you “label” yourself as an Agile team – does it mean you are actually using Agile? Seriously…be brutally honest…does it?
It pisses me off to no end when a poorly executed project is blamed on the process. What a bunch of bullshit! It isn’t the poor process’s fault – it is the crap job of the people executing it.
I sincerely believe that regardless of the process – if you give real effort your project will be a success. After that, permanent adoption of new processes is if the new processes give you better success on a relative scale.
Without true effort, no process will work.
Without true effort, no project will be a success.
Without true effort, you are wasting your time.
6 Responses to “Your New Process (Some Assembly Required)”
[…] Your New Process (Some Assembly Required) (Max Pool) […]
I agree with you. Unfortunately, many people think the point of a process is to make sure the project is not poorly executed. The problem is that a process is only as good as the people who implement it.
You can’t take a good process and “bad” people and find success. It just doesn’t work that way.
Guess that is what they mean by “people over process”.
Does this post work if it’s twisted to the dark side? Can you claim CMMI doesn’t work because people don’t work hard enough at it? Or does it fail because it requires too much effort in the first place?
@SteveJ –
LOL, even though I hate CMM I do believe consistent running of the process would produce *predictable* results. Unfortunately, due to the pain levels of CMM people bastardize it, thus spending more time in the end…
Software processes are a lot like diets; most teams know how to actually fix the problem, with a balanced approach, trimming away the fat of their processes and consistent effort by everyone on the team, yet most teams like people are lazy and are looking for some silver bullet, one pill, one process solution.
One funny truth is that if everyone is committed to a project and marching towards the same goals using the same tools almost *any* process will work. One of the real benefits I think of Agile is that the short cycles and broader involvement by everyone earlier in the process keeps everything fresh and engaging and leaves less gaps for people to drift out of focus.